A Short Course in Intellectual Self-Defense

What is the relationship between democracy and critical thinking? What must a citizen in a democracy know to make the word democracy meaningful? In A Short Course in Intellectual Self-Defense, historian and educator Normand Baillargeon provides readers with the tools to see through the spin and jargon of everyday politics and news reporting in order to decide for themselves what is at stake and how to ask the necessary questions to protect themselves from the manipulations of the government and the media. Whether the issue be the call to what we’re told will be a bloodless war, the "debate around Intelligent Design,” or the meaning of a military expenditure, Baillargeon teaches readers to evaluate information and sort fact from official and media spin.

A Short Course in Intellectual Self-Defense Normand Baillargeon

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Paperback

$14.36

$17.95

Publish Date: 2008-02-05

ISBN: 9781583227657

Pages: 336

Ebook

$10.77

$17.95

Publish Date: 2008-02-05

ISBN: 9781609800048

Pages: 0

“With charm, with, lucidity, and expert knowledge, this 'short course' carries the reader in easy steps from simple devices intended to "regiment the public mind" (in the words of one of the founders of the public relations industry) to more subtle modes of delusion and deceit of the kind that inundate us constantly. It does not just expose, though that is valuable enough, but also provides strategies for analysis of media and propaganda generally, a guide to resources, and a toolkit for critical inquiry that should be of great value to those who hope to understand a complex world that is made still more obscure when transmitted through the distorting prisms of ideology and doctrine.”

– Noam Chomsky

“This book provides an amiable and effective guide through some of the pitfalls and mysteries of language, of logic—and of magic! Readers are sure to discover that its lucid analyses and discussions assist them considerably in avoiding or in overcoming the many obstacles that commonly stand in the way of clear thought and expression.”

No? Neither did the rest of the world. That's because these and countless other news items are suppressed or ignored by our nation's "free press" every day. For the past forty years, Project Censored has been unearthing the buried stories that corporate media deem unfit to print. They also just hosted a jam-packed Media Freedom Summit and co-founded the Global Critical Media Literacy Project in partnership with the Action Coalition for Media Education and the graduate program in Media Literacy and Digital Culture at Sacred Heart University.

To celebrate, we're showcasing Censored 2017 at a 25% off online discount and offering 50% off Censored backlist titles (from Censored 1996 to Censored 2006), along with select Seven Stoires books on media literacy, including titles by Arundhati Roy and Noam Chomsky.

Militant anarchist and educator Normand Baillargeon teaches the fundamentals of education and museum studies at the University of Quebec at Montreal. He is the author of four books, including A Short Course in Intellectual Self-Defense, which was published in English by Seven Stories Press in 2008.